food for thought

Getting a wound can take a second.

Healing a wound can be a long process. Incredibly, our bodies know how to react to the initial opening, the alert goes out, cells kick in, and healing begins.

There are four stages to healing a wound, stopping blood loss, reconstruction, migration, and maturation and remodeling. If the wound is not large no outside remedy is needed. The body can repair itself. If the wound is gaping sutures bind the edges to encourage faster healing.

Our country was wounded. Everyone rallied all around the world to help us repair the damage but we lost our way following 9/11. We received a direct hit to one of our countries nerve centers and split into two factions that believed in different healing potions. For eight long years we bled. We were unable to stanch the flow of blood and became weakened in the aftermath. We never got past the first phase of healing.

Today, we look around and see attempts at reconstruction. Like nature, things that heal and grow never give up. We are faced with massive infection so we've taken out the medical kit and are experimenting with a new treatment. The infection is everywhere, we might not succeed, but our instincts tell us to try anyway.

There is nothing more terrifying to those who have been in power to have to sit back and watch the new leaders experiment with a new treatment. No one knows if it will work, but everyone knows that if enough fight against it, the likely hood of it not working increases.

i'll say that again: If enough fight against a new cure the likely hood of it not working increases.

Questions abound, articles are written daily concerning the direction the country should consider. Some, just want to continue doing what we have been doing which isn't healing the wound.

How are we going to heal?

Will we be disabled by the new and innovative actions we take today? The following questions are making the rounds on the internet strings, looping back on themselves trying to find the path.

A primary one to consider is if the growth model we have been following for the past fifty years is simply unsustainable both economically and ecologically?

Has prioritizing private markets over public interests been our undoing?

After half a century of catering to defense contractors could we save money and stop bleeding by closing bases around the world, reevaluating the use of obsolete weapons systems, reconsidering nuclear disarmament around the world and speeding up the end of the invasion of Iraq?

Should government protect people's health or insurance companies profits?

Who got the stimulus money and what did they do with it?

Who is our worst enemy, terrorists or the sinking planet?

Is your food safe to eat?

The list goes on and on.

Today the other side is claiming this new administration is only about tax, spend and borrow. For those non-thinkers out there this is easy to remember. Tax, spend and borrow. It sticks in the mind easily and it is not just true about this new administration but it is true of all administrations. They all just tax, spend and borrow but what they tax, spend and borrow for differs.

Yesterday it was tax the middle class, spend on weapons, war and defense, and borrow against the future. Tomorrow it is tax the upper class, spend on health, jobs and the environment and borrow against the future.

Choose your weapon. i kind of like tomorrow's outlook.

We have a long way to go to heal this country. We need to work together to close the wound. It is time to support a new way of doing things for the old way has failed miserably and the wound is gaping. Lets try to close it up.

It's their future.